Tigers don't have a lot of choice but to live with growing pains of two key rookies Matthew B. Mowery says

Detroit Tigers’ Eugenio Suarez, right, celebrates with teammates after scoring on a two-run single hit by Miguel Cabrera during the eighth inning of a baseball game in June. Suarez has cooled off after a hot start to his rookie season.
NAM Y. HUH — The Associated Press file photo

DETROIT >> As 18-year-olds, that two players from vastly different backgrounds were thrown together as dorm mates at Tiger Town in Lakeland, Fla., is not that much of an oddity. Happens all the time.

For those two players to be stationed side-by-side in the major leagues as 22-year-olds just four years later is more rare. Only happens sometimes.

But it’s certainly rare for those two rookies to be playing next to each other for a World Series contender — one that registers as the fourth-oldest team in the major leagues — and doing so at the key positions on the left side of the infield.

“It’s cool. When was the last time two 22-year-olds hit home runs in a Tigers game?” Tigers third baseman Nick Castellanos said in early June, after he and shortstop Eugenio Suarez did just that. (The answer: 1978)

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“It’s a lot of fun, you know? It’s fun to see someone that I lived in the dorms with when I was 18, and both of us hit home runs in big-league games. It’s awesome having you and your friends’ dreams come true.”

For the Tigers, though, a team that’s poised to win now, it may not be such a dream scenario. It’s certainly not ideal, which is why — after the diagnosis of Jose Iglesias’ season-ending shin injuries — the team cycled through veterans Alex Gonzalez, Andrew Romine and Danny Worth next to Castellanos before coming to the conclusion that they might as well go with Suarez.

So far, it’s worked OK.

“It’s kind of what we’ve got. We’ve got Suarey and Nick over there. There’s going to be some mistakes over there that are quote-unquote rookie mistakes, but those are our shortstop, third baseman for the time being, and I don’t expect it to change,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “Really, they’ve handled themselves well. They’ve carried themselves well. They don’t really have the — a lot of times with young players, there’s this nervous energy. They don’t really carry themselves like that.

“They seem calm. They don’t seem awed by major league stadiums or major league pitching.”

Castellanos came into Saturday leading all big-league rookies with 18 doubles, and second among American League rookies in hits, third in total bases, extra-base hits and RBI.

The Tigers knew they had a bat like that in Castellanos, and were willing to live with a defense-first guy next to him. That’s what they had in Iglesias — the runner-up in the 2013 AL Rookie of the Year voting — anyway.

But when they weren’t getting enough of a contribution to the position — other shortstops hit a combined .210 with one home run and 13 RBI, numbers Suarez has nearly matched in just a month — they called up a second rookie after a week at Triple-A Toledo, and installed him in the starting role.

In his first week, he hit .400 with three home runs — one of them with childhood hero and fellow Venezuelan Magglio Ordonez in the building — leading people to ask where this revelation had been all season.

And leading the manager to advocate pumping the brakes.

“Well, he’s done well out of the gate, but we’re still out of the gate. I don’t want to put undue pressure on the kid, like he’s going to carry the squad on his shoulders. He’s going to learn the game, he’s going to learn the league, and there’s going to be some growing,” Ausmus said at the time. “He’s given us more offensively than we thought. We knew he had power, but he’s shown a little more power than we expected, in the few number of at-bats that he’s had.

“He’s certainly been a much bigger part of the offense than we expected.

“We knew he could maybe come in and inject a little energy, but he’s been a bigger part of things than we thought he would, much quicker than we thought he would.”

He’s still advocating patience — with both rookies.

“Let’s wait. I don’t want to rush to judgement. Let’s wait a little bit on that,” Ausmus said this weekend, when asked if the duo has been better than expected.

That’s going to be the key — not getting carried away.

Not getting carried away when they do exceedingly well.

Not getting carried away when they struggle.

Both of them will.

Both of them have.

Suarez has hit .224 since that initial burst.

He’s played well enough that there’s not that urgency for the Tigers to feel like their hand is being forced to make a trade for a shortstop — especially now that their supposed primary target, Stephen Drew, is off the free-agent market — but also hasn’t played well enough that he’s necessarily cemented himself a permanent position.

“He gets in modes where he overswings. I don’t even know if he realizes it. I know Wally has talked to him about it. We talked to him about it in in Arlington, about getting a little bit long, getting a little bit big. And I don’t think he’s consciously trying to get long and big, but it looks sometimes like he’s trying to hit the ball over the wall, rather than to stay short and just hit line drives,” Ausmus said.

“Young players and veteran players alike have to be reminded of that sometimes.”

Castellanos has had his share of ups and downs, too.

What can a manager do to ease them through the growing pains?

“Mostly reassure them, when things go bad that, hey, this isn’t the end of the world. Everyone goes through this. You’re not as bad as you think you are right now,” Ausmus said. “Basically just reassure them that what they’re going through isn’t new. Pretty much every guy goes through it.”

It’s just a situation that’s going to require patience.

There will be bright spots.

And rough patches.

“Suarez knows exactly what he’s doing,” Castellanos said. “I’m not worried about him at all. He’s a really talented kid, and I think he’s going to stick with us for a long time.”

The Tigers will live with both. Right now, they don’t have a lot of choice.